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Even Homer Sometimes Nods – How to Correct our Students’ Mistakes

By Mohammed AlfadhelcloseAuthor: Mohammed Alfadhel Name: Mohammed Alfadhel
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About: Mohammed Ali Alfadhel is of Syrian nationality and did his M.A. in English literature in 2005. He has been teaching English since 1997 in different schools and institutes. He is the author of many articles on different educational and literary topics. Mohammed Ali Alfadhel currently teaches English Language and literature at the Department of English, University of Alandalus for Science & Technology in Yemen, where he serves as the Head of Department. He believes in educating all individuals in society irrespective of their backgrounds. When not working, he is fond of listening to classical music and drawing. Mohammed Ali Alfadhel's motto is "Judge me all you want, but keep the verdict to yourself'.See Authors Posts (2)

By Mohammed Ali Alfadhel

To correct students’ mistakes has always been, and will always be the concern of most teachers. To begin with, it is crucial to emphasize that no one is above knowledge, including teachers. Mistakes are part of our life; we all make mistakes now and then. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes as long as we learn from them and avoid repeating them over and over. Some teachers are in favor of immediate correction, while others are in favor of delayed correction.

Some would even go further to consider the whole process as time –consuming. In this article, I would like to dwell upon this controversial issue to offer some suggestions and techniques used for both immediate and delayed correction based on my practical experience.

On the one hand, when students are corrected in front of their classmates, they feel offended and get discouraged. On the other hand, they expect teachers to continually correct them during classes. Failure to do so will create confusion and suspicion on the part of the students. As such, teachers are expected to strive to find most creative ways to deal with this problem most typically arises. They need to encourage and stimulate their students to participate in class without fear of making mistakes. Most students refuse to answer on the ground that they are most likely to be the laughingstock of the class. Consequently, they get discouraged and feel so humiliated. Not doing so may deprive them of a valuable learning opportunity.

Generally speaking, there are three types of oral mistakes that need to be corrected during class discussion. These are, grammatical, vocabulary, and pronunciation mistakes.

This leads us to a very important question as, should we interrupt our students during discussion or avoid interrupting them as much as we can? To answer this question we need to ask ourselves whether the focus is on accuracy or fluency. In fact, to save our students the embarrassment and in order not to distract them, we can employ less provocative approaches.

One way is to make notes of the most common mistakes made by a student to be discussed later. Write them on the board without revealing the name of the student in order not embarrass him/her. Ask the rest of the class to identify these mistakes and correct them. Another way is to raise an eyebrow, or say, “Excuse me?” Or the teacher can ask for repetition without indicating the mistake.

Also we can employ another approach called, ‘selective correction’. In this case, the teacher decides to correct only certain errors. These errors can be decided by the objectives of the lesson, or the exercise that is being done. In other words, if students are focusing on past simple tense, then only mistakes related to this subject are corrected. Other mistakes are ignored.

In conclusion, the teacher can decide which is the most beneficial and effective approach based on the situation itself. Accordingly, students overcome their shyness and play an active role in class discussions without being afraid of making mistakes. As a result, they acknowledge and accept their mistakes as part of the learning process instead of being offended when they are corrected by their teacher.